Oval Celtic bowl

Oval Celtic bowl

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Oval Celtic bowl

Mousehole (pronounced "mous'le") is a fishing village two miles
south of Penzance. Buy a local a pint of 'Tinners' in the Ship Inn on the
harbour, and he'll tell you about the dire problems of the Cornish fishing
industry and the injustices of EC legislation. These people, who work so
hard when they have the chance - you could lose a small coin in the cracks
in their hands - are watching their livelihood slowly ebb away.

Not so in the mid 1960s when Bill and Maggie Fisher set up Celtic Pottery
there. Maggie was a Canadian with a keen business sense. The south coast
of Cornwall has strong links with Canada; if you passed through Newlyn at
the end of the twentieth century you would see more maple leaf flags than
Union Jacks or Kernow crosses.

The design for which Celtic was to become famous, Folk, was one
of Bill's. Heraldic designs - aggressive cockerels with claws at the ready
- were the order of the day. Maggie split with Bill and moved the pottery
to Newlyn, the next village along the coast towards Penzance, taking the
Folk design with her. Here she met up with Ev Stevens who ran Newlyn's Gwavas
Pottery. Ev (short for Everidge) joined Maggie, and his range of designs
were amalgamated into Celtic to become the Medallion range. Medallion
proved to be as popular as Folk, and Celtic Pottery is remembered for just
these two designs.

In the late seventies Celtic became Sunset Ceramics making a different range
of wares, but the sun set on Sunset within a few years. Maggie is still
a very successful businesswoman. She gave up pottery and now runs trading
companies in various parts of Cornwall.

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